Pretoria - South Africa backed Iran's stance on the right of a country to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, said deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad on Monday.

"South Africa will not accept any prevention of the use of nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

"It is a demand we make and we support Iran in that regard," he told journalists in Pretoria on the first day of the SA-Iran deputy ministerial working group's meeting.

"The right (to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes) is something logical and in line with the international community's intentions," said Ahmad Azizi, Iran's deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, who is co-chairing the meeting with Pahad.

The Eastern Cape has been allocated R1,3-billion from the national budget to settle all outstanding land claims in the next three years.

This was revealed during the provincial land summit held at Regent Hotel in East London this week.

The provincial land summit is a prelude to the national land summit to be held later this month.

Speaking at the summit, provincial Land Commissioner, L Faleni, said Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, in his budget speech earlier this year, indicated an amount of R6-billion had been allocated to provinces to complete the land restitution process in the next three years.

She said in terms of the land policy framework all outstanding restitution claims should be finalised by the end of March 2008.

"Over 15 000 claims have been settled in the Eastern Cape and we are left with just below 2 000 claims to finalise," said Faleni.

Commissioner Faleni said the majority of claims to be finalised shortly, that is, by the end of December 2005, were rural claims.

"Urban claims are to be finalised in the next three years," she said.

Settled claims in the urban areas included the east and west banks of East London and Kabahlanga, claims in the rural areas include areas of Mkhambathi, Dwesa-Cwebe and Guba, while family claims settled include those of Kattoo and Casojee.

Ms Faleni said the three-year period for lodging claims ended in December 1998.

"It took five years for the land claims commission and the land claims court to finalise all claims ending December 31 this year," she said.

Faleni also raised concerns about challenges facing land restitution, including "willing seller and willing buyer" scheme where, she said, land owners sold their land or farms at exhorbitant prices to the buyers regardless of market prices.

Meanwhile preparations are underway in the Northern Cape for the provincial two-day land summit starting next Wednesday.

More than 500 delegates representing the landless, farm workers, land reform beneficiaries, land activists, organized agriculture, provincial and national government, business, political parties, federations and trade unions, decision makers and academics are expected to attend the summit.

According to the provincial department of Agriculture, the Summit would assist in expanding decision making within the land reform.

"It would also assist in raising the profile of South Africa's land and agrarian reform as a yardstick of economic growth and poverty eradication, " the department said.

Resolutions to be taken at the provincial summit will be tabled at the National Land Summit.

If they had more people like Dr Ron Paul in the American government, the world would be a far better place. Most of the billions in African aid that was pumped into the bottomless pit of Africa over more than seventy years. The corrupt, thieving, scavenging, African leaders, have pocketed most the money destined for the starving masses. Sixty years ago Africa was starving and sixty years from now, they will still be starving! There is no record of any African leader who ever created even a semblance of wealth for his country and his people.
Fred

At the G8 summit in Scotland last week, we heard once again how the wealthy nations of the world have not done enough to raise Africa out of poverty. At the Live 8 music festival that preceded it, we heard angry demands for “Justice, Not Charity” in Africa. Implicit in such demands is the collectivist fallacy that wealth is a zero sum game, and therefore western prosperity is possible only at the expense of African misery. As usual, Americans and other western nations are portrayed as villains who somehow conspire to keep Africa poor.

The White House attempted to quell criticism that America is “not doing enough” to save Africa by announcing that the U.S. would double its economic aid to the continent, from $4.3 billion to $8.6 billion, over the next few years. Neither Congress nor the American people were consulted prior to this pronouncement, I might add. I think the public might not share the administration’s generous mood, especially as we spend billions in Iraq and face single year deficits of $500 billion. Frankly, a federal government with nearly $8 trillion in debt has no business giving money to anybody.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair went a step further, promising that the G8 nations will provide $50 billion in economic aid to Africa by 2010, along with canceling hundreds of millions in debt owed to taxpayers of several western governments. But why should foreign leaders have any say over how American tax dollars are spent? Is our annual federal budget now subject to foreign scrutiny and approval? America is an incredibly charitable nation, as evidenced by the hundreds of millions of dollars donated by private citizens for tsunami relief last year. We don’t need lectures or guidance from the world when it comes to foreign aid.

African poverty is rooted in government corruption, corruption that actually is fostered by western aid. We should ask ourselves a simple question: Why is private capital so scarce in Africa? The obvious answer is that many African nations are ruled by terrible men who pursue disastrous economic policies. As a result, American aid simply enriches dictators, distorts economies, and props up bad governments. We could send Africa $1 trillion, and the continent still would remain mired in poverty simply because so many of its nations reject property rights, free markets, and the rule of law.

As commentator Joseph Potts explains, western money enables dictators like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to gain and hold power without the support of his nation’s people. African rulers learn to manipulate foreign governments and obtain an independent source of income, which makes them far richer and more powerful than any of their political rivals. Once comfortably in power, and much to the horror of the western governments that funded them, African dictators find their subjects quite helpless and dependent. Potts describes this process as giving African politicians the “power to impoverish.” The bottom line is that despite decades of western aid, more Africans than ever are living in extreme poverty. Foreign aid simply doesn’t work.

Despite this reality, western political leaders who offer to increase aid are always praised for their compassionate and progressive policies. But what about the people who are suffering here at home, whether from hunger, illness, or poverty? Are their lives and well being less important? Where is the constitutional provision allowing American tax dollars to be sent overseas?

The president is promising money we don’t have to solve a problem we didn’t cause. Americans have the freedom to do everything in their power to alleviate African suffering, whether by donating money or working directly in impoverished nations. But government-to-government foreign aid doesn’t work, and it never has. We should stop kidding ourselves and ignore the emotionalist pleas of rock stars. Suffering in Africa cannot be helped by delusional, feel-good government policies.

London - British police are on the verge of identifying one person they believe was involved in the bomb attacks which killed at least 52 people in London, a report said on Tuesday.

The Financial Times, which cited an unnamed European official involved in international efforts to find the bombers, said progress had been made towards naming who was responsible for a blast on a bus on Thursday morning.

The bus explosion was one of four co-ordinated bombings, the others on London Underground subway trains, which caused carnage in the morning rush hour.

"I think we are going to see photographs of one or more suspects being posted within days," the official told the paper.

Separately, The Times newspaper reported that forensic pathologists are paying particularly close attention to two bodies found inside the wrecked bus to see whether one of them might have been the bomber.

"There are two bodies which have to be examined in great detail because they appear to have been holding the bomb or sitting on top of it," a "senior police source" told the paper.

"One of those might turn out to be the bomber."

Some experts have speculated that the bus bomb might have gone off accidentally as the terrorist carried it, possibly to another Underground station.

Another report in the Daily Mirror said that police had placed up to 100 suspects considered the "most likely" to have been involved in the attack under surveillance.

An unnamed intelligence source told the paper that among these were British residents known to have trained in al-Qaeda-type camps overseas.

Up to 100 "will be vigorously looked at in a serious surveillance operation", the source was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile in the United States, NBC television reported that British investigators have found fingerprints on bomb materials from the London attacks, adding that at least four operatives are believed to have been involved.

British intelligence told United States counterparts that investigators have picked up fingerprints from bomb materials.

Law enforcement officials said investigators suspect the bombers congregated at the King's Cross Tube station, then set out to plant the devices, NBC said.

According to The Times, a single bomb maker using military-grade explosives was most likely responsible for manufacturing all the bombs used in the attacks.

Similar components have been found by police at all four bomb sites, the newspaper said without citing a source.

Investigators believe that the materials used to make the rucksack-based bombs were manufactured using smuggled, military-grade explosives, possibly brought in from the Balkans, the paper said.

"The nature of the explosives appears to be military, which is very worrying," Superintendent Christophe Chaboud, head of France's anti-terrorism police, who is helping the London inquiry, was quoted as saying.

Johannesburg - The Nelson Mandela who allegedly wanted to ask up to R10 000 for an autographed photograph and would have sold signed copies of his autobiography to a company "was contradictory to the character of the man he (his former lawyer, Ismail Ayob) had come to know and respect through the years".

In Ayob's sworn statement submitted to Johannesburg High Court, this confidant of many years of the former president said he told Mandela's office staff that the collection of these fees would lead to "negative publicity" for Mandela.

According to Ayob, the former president wanted payment to autograph "books, T-shirts, baseball caps, photographs, and so forth, which had been sent to him from time to time by members of the public".

However, he advised Mandela to rather send signed photos of himself to these people "to save time and money".

"He followed my advice for a little while. Then he started asking R500 a photo.

'Had earned R500 a copy for the signature'

"Shortly after this, this fee rose to R10 000 for an autographed photograph."

In his statement, Ayob claimed he came across "hundreds of copies of Long Walk to Freedom in Mandela's home and that Mandela "had autographed these books for a big company".

"His answer to me was that he had earned R500 a copy for the signature."

According to Ayob, Mandela started getting "highly suspicious" about his money matters in June last year because he was "anxious that he did not have control of his affairs".

Ayob apparently had to show photographs and visual material to Mandela to remind him that he had signed artworks, but sometimes, Mandela apparently denied, a couple of days later, that he had singed these artworks.

"For this reason, I decided that I could no longer act on his [Mandela's] behalf.

"During a meeting which was highly agonising to me, I explained to him that what had been demanded of me under the circumstances had strained our relationship."

During the meeting, he apparently suggested that Mandela should "consult a doctor independently without interference by any of his relatives".

Ayob claims the former president did, in fact, consciously sign his name and rights over to Tinancier Investment and Holdings.

Mandela Trust owns Tinancier

Ayob said this agreement was ratified by two subsequent documents.

Ayob said this was the case, despite the former president maintaining that he did not sign the agreement or was misled by Ayob to do so.

According to Ayob, the Mandela Trust owns Tinancier, and the directors of this company are Mandela's daughters, Makaziwe and Zenani.

He claims he did not benefit from the Tinancier agreement and that he received only R364.28 an hour in legal fees.

"Everything I had ever done in terms of my relationship with (Mandela), I did to the benefit of (Mandela) and the benefit of (his) family."